Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Jan. 9 that a continuing resolution to keep funding the government at current spending levels will be needed—setting up an inevitable fight with House Republicans.
Mr. McConnell’s remarks come 10 days before the Jan. 19 deadline when some government agencies are set to run out of funding. The remaining agencies would shut down on Feb. 3.
While there is an agreement on the top-line government funding amount for the fiscal 2024 year, he said, “We need to prevent a government shutdown.
“And so, the obvious question is how long does the CR need to be. And that will be up to the majority leader and the speaker to determine the length of the CR.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also favors a CR. He said on Jan. 9 he would not speculate how long a CR would be but that he'd try to get it done as soon as possible.
Over the weekend, Mr. Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced the top line at $1.59 trillion with $69 billion in discretionary spending that was in a side deal struck earlier this year between former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and President Joe Biden—bringing the total spending amount to almost $1.66 trillion. The $1.59 trillion figure was also agreed to by Mr. McCarthy and President Biden as part of increasing the debt ceiling.
The budget deal includes $886 billion in defense spending, with a 5.2 percent pay raise for members of the military and $704 billion for other discretionary spending.
The deal made between Mr. Schumer and Mr. Johnson includes an additional $10 billion in additional IRS personnel cuts this year on top of the $10 billion in such cuts already set for this year under the debt ceiling agreement. That means that IRS personnel cuts scheduled for next year were moved to this year.
It also consists of $6.1 billion in COVID spending cuts.
Moreover, Mr. Johnson’s office said the deal allows for Republicans to fight for more conservative victories such as appropriations policy riders and reprioritizing funding along the lines of the top-line spending figure.
“What we can’t do is do what Republicans always do, which is ... to go cut some watered-down deal that won’t do the job in order to get something else,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told Iris Tao of The Epoch Times’ sister outlet, NTD, a cable network.
“It rejects deep cuts to programs hardworking families count on and provides a path to passing full-year funding bills that deliver for the American people and are free of any extreme policies,” he stated.
President Biden called on congressional Republicans to “do their job, stop threatening to shut down the government, and fulfill their basic responsibility to fund critical domestic and national security priorities, including my supplemental request.”
That supplemental funding request includes $60 billion in supplemental assistance for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel, and other funding such as for the Indo-Pacific and to deal with processing illegal immigrants at the southern border.
Nationwide, the number of illegal immigrant encounters has more than tripled over that period—from 647,000 in President Trump’s final year in office to 3.2 million in President Biden’s third year in the White House.
Amid the continued influx of illegal immigrants into the country, Republicans continue to push for border security. Among the most vocal are House Freedom Caucus members.
“At some point, having the House majority has to matter,” he continued. “Stop funding this spending with an open border!”
